The present invention relates to a method for treating material normally eaten by free roaming ruminant animals, or treating the area surrounding such material, to discourage such ruminants, for example members of the deer family, from browsing the edible material. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method for treating edible material with a specific class of ruminant repellent compositions comprising certain aldehydes and the oxidation precursors of these aldehydes.
In those agricultural industries which grow crops such as timber or food in regions adjacent to or within areas having a high ruminant animal population, the yearly loss of useful plant life to browsing or grazing by ruminants reaches staggering proportions. It has been estimated that the irreversible loss of timber resulting from ruminant browsing, either by stunting of growth or entirely killing trees, exceeds many millions of dollars per year. This loss is caused primarily by members of the deer family, which browse on timber producing trees, such as Douglas fir seedlings, during the late fall and winter seasons, and which selectively browse on the current growth of timber-producing trees in the spring and early summer seasons. The timber industry has been seeking a way to prevent such browsing by ruminants. A variety of compositions have been tried as ruminant repellents, but only a few have met with relative success.
Among those materials which have been effectively used as ruminant repellents are the putrefied products of a mixture of a lipoidal material and a lipolytic enzyme. One effective repellent composition has been derived from the putrefaction product of whole fish and lipolytic enzyme in excess of that present in the whole fish. Although these repellent compositions are effective, the putrefaction process is rather expensive, is extremely obnoxious to those who most work with it, meets with some ecological objections, and also produces some materials that may by phytotoxic, mammalian toxic or otherwise harmful to the ecosystem. A continuing search for effective, less toxic, easier to handle ruminant repellents has culminated in the present invention.
It is a broad object of the present invention to provide a ruminant repellent that, alone or in combination with other repellent compositions, will effectively discourage browsing by ruminants of edible material such as trees. Further objects of the present invention are to provide an inexpensive, readily available ruminant repellent, to provide a ruminant repellent which is not derived from a putrefaction process, to provide a ruminant repellent that can easily be applied to edible material in unputrefied form, and to provide a ruminant repellent that is compatable with the forest ecosystem and especially that has little or no phytotoxicity or mammalian toxicity.
Other objects of the present invention are to provide a ruminant repellent that can be synthesized or that can be derived from natural sources and that can be applied to edible material in a relatively pure form to repel ruminants, to provide precursors for a ruminant repellent that, when applied to edible material, will produce active repellent ingredients over a relatively long period of time, to provide a ruminant repellent that can be applied to edible material in pure form or that can be mixed with other ingredients to control the release of the active repellent ingredient, and to provide compositions that, when applied to edible material in combination with another known repellent, will enhance the repellent effectiveness of the known repellent. Additional objects of the invention are to provide a broad range of hydrocarbon compounds that produce active repellent ingredients upon application to edible material, and more specifically, to provide a specific class of compounds that are especially suited to produce active repellent ingredients upon application to edible materials, and to provide a method for enhancing the effectiveness of the class of repellent-producing hydrocarbon compounds.